Yeah, I think that’s true on a lot of politics. Just think that many millions have been spent to make “actually international aid is really important both for saving lives and US soft power” an unfashionable argument in Republican circles, and Big Aid already has very good lobbyists working on the Dems too.
An interesting question is whether there’s much more scope in a European context, where questions about foreign aid are driven more by budget constraints and less by partisanship and xenophobia and “might the money be spent better on filling gaps in PEPFAR etc than current policy” is an argument policymakers might not be hearing so much from existing aid lobbyists.
Yeah, I think that’s true on a lot of politics. Just think that many millions have been spent to make “actually international aid is really important both for saving lives and US soft power” an unfashionable argument in Republican circles, and Big Aid already has very good lobbyists working on the Dems too.
An interesting question is whether there’s much more scope in a European context, where questions about foreign aid are driven more by budget constraints and less by partisanship and xenophobia and “might the money be spent better on filling gaps in PEPFAR etc than current policy” is an argument policymakers might not be hearing so much from existing aid lobbyists.